In late June, Sebastian Navarro with Community First Soccer reached out to Tacoma Defiance Chaplain, Jubal McDaniel. Is there any soccer gear that we might be able to give away to the children participating in our youth camps this summer? Earlier this year, Jubal had gone through the process of closing down his own non-profit, Northwest Football Ministries. In previous years, Jubal and Sebastian had connected to mutually serve local communities in the state of Washington through soccer.
Community First Soccer is a soccer non profit 501(c)3 whose main goal is to make soccer accessible to all starting with the underserved communities who need it the most. They host free soccer camps and college showcases. Their mission and aim is to never charge for a soccer camp. They make their camps free and accessible to as many people as possible — a difficult task in the pay-to-play soccer culture that permeates the North American landscape, currently.
There were multiple camps held — Yakima, Quincy, and Sunnyside — all cities across southeast Washington over a period of two weeks in late July. The camps were free to all of the families and helped provide soccer gear, lunches, haircuts, and new friends! Local professionals, like former Seattle Sounder Roman Torres, were on site to coach, encourage, and engage with the kids.
This Community Project fulfillment also marked another “first” of sorts — gear from Jubal in Tacoma, and not Denver. As Soccer Chaplains United continues to grow, so do the opportunities for expanding our abilities to get used soccer gear to other communities through our Community Project program. All totaled, Jubal delivered about 20 bags of gear for CFS to use over the course of the two weeks.
When you financially support Soccer Chaplains United a portion of your gift automatically goes to help our community projects and requests. You can give specifically to help cover our costs by making a gift through PushPay — simply select Community Project from the selectable funds. Your financial gift helps us purchase new soccer equipment, sponsor individuals projects and organizations, and to cover associated costs of providing Bibles, soccer equipment, and other outreach tools locally and around the world!
See the pictures below as the gear was handed out to different children and their families.